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Universities need push to develop analytical talent

In a May 2011 report, the McKinsey Global Institute predicted that there will be a shortage in the coming years of the analytical talent necessary for organizations to take full advantage of “big data”—the growing pools of both structured and unstructured data that companies are collecting and looking to analyze. By 2018, the report said, the U.S. could have an unanswered need for 140,000 to 190,000 workers with deep analytical skills, plus 1.5 million managers and business analysts who could put the results of big data analytics applications to good use in making effective business decisions. If it does come to pass, the lack of analytical and decision-making expertise could negatively affect the ability of organizations to derive business value from the information they’re capturing and then leverage data-driven strategies to innovate and increase their competitiveness. To avoid such consequences, companies and educators should make a coordinated and concerted effort to do the following: Create awareness among high school ...